S&P said in a filing yesterday that the Justice Department overreached in its attempt to target the company. S&P issued credit ratings identical to those given by its competitors for the securities that are at issue in the government’s complaint, according to the filing.

“If the Government’s case appears to be a stretch, that is because it is,” the filing said. “S&P’s inability, together with the Federal Reserve, Treasury and other market participants, to predict the extent of the most catastrophic meltdown since the Great Depression reveals a lack of prescience but not fraud.”

The US said in its Feb. 4 complaint that S&P knowingly and intentionally defrauded investors in residential mortgage-backed securities and collateralized-debt obligations that included those securities for which the company provided credit ratings.